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An odd noise, like steel scraping stone, filled the dark chamber. Someone else was there. Veiled in a shroud of darkness, he loomed large at the foot of the stone slab. I could see no features, only the silhouette of a huge Morgon man and piercing fire-gold eyes. Smoky mist curled around him, hiding his identity. A familiar essence of evil crawled over my skin, seeping into my bones, filling me with sickening dread. The creature, for it was more monster than man, hefted himself onto the slab and over my body. A stench of rot and decay smothered me, choked me, as the thing’s face hovered over mine. Still, I could see nothing but his eyes—full dragon with black, vertical slits dilated in burning amber.
He grabbed my breast with a rough hand and squeezed. I screamed.
“Mine.” A broken, guttural voice. A demon’s voice.
He lowered his putrid body between my legs, his veiled face coming closer, cold lips clamping over my own as I screamed and screamed and screamed.
“Moira.” Someone shook me. “Wake up!”
I thrashed my arms, beating the air, beating someone else.
“Moira. It’s me.”
I grabbed the wrists of the hands cupping my face, finally fighting through the haze of the nightmare to see Kol above me. His eyes flashed bright, wrapping me in an unexpected sense of safety. I burst into tears and threw my arms around his neck, clinging like a child.
“Shhh.” He lay in the bed next to me, the covers having fallen to the floor. Holding and rocking me against his warm, bare chest, one hand brushed over my hair and back. “It was a nightmare. You’re okay.”
I kept crying, unable to speak at first, letting the tide of fear wash away with each soothing stroke of Kol’s hand.
“No,” I sobbed. “It was more than that. I knew him. I’d felt him before.” The tears streamed hot and fast down my cheeks, slipping sideways onto the pillow. I still clung to Kol, unwilling to let my protector go, the lingering effects of the dream still clawing my insides.
“I’d forgotten about him.” I sniffed. “He was there. Tonight. In that exit where Borgus was taking me.”
“What do you mean?” He continued to coax me with gentle hands and a soft voice.
“There was someone there. In the shadows. He was…evil. Dark as death. Waiting for us. For me.” I sobbed again. Kol brushed away the tears, but they continued to fall.
“That’s what I forgot to tell you. Couldn’t admit. As soon as I sensed him, I couldn’t go on. I wanted out of my dumbass plan. I wanted to run, far away. I was a coward! Those girls. That thing. Oh, God!” A fit of crying overwhelmed me.
“Shhh. Stop now.”
His thumb brushed over the trail of my tears, a continuing caress as I tried to slow my panicked breathing. I pressed closer, not caring that I seemed weak, needing warmth and comfort to wipe away that horrific thing from my senses, needing to feel the strength and protection of his muscular body. Minutes passed while he soothed me with gentle hands, my nerves unwinding with each touch that slid over my hair and down my back. I inhaled and let out a jagged breath.
“You’re safe.” Something in his voice, an unexpected tenderness, called to me.
Prying myself from his shoulder, I examined the outline of his face by the dying embers in the hearth. I brushed my fingertips over the scar now hidden in shadow. His eyes glinted silver, sliding closed as I caressed him. Both of us sought comfort in the dark.
Heart pounding for a different reason, I let my fingers explore as I never would in the light of day—across his brow, along his granite jaw where a day’s stubble scratched my fingertips, over his wide mouth and sensuous lips. Sensuous. I’d never noticed before. Or maybe I hadn’t let myself notice. With all the coldness of Kol, his lips defied everything he appeared to be. His lips invited, summoned, lured.
Those lips parted. Two fingertips, shaky, skimmed a fraction inside, resting on a ridge of teeth. His tongue touched the tips. A half-moan escaped me as I pulled my fingers away. His hand combed into my hair, curling around the nape of my neck, his mouth brushing an intimate invitation against mine. I opened for him, and he came inside.
Gentler, but no less dominant than last time, he slid his tongue into my mouth, licking and tasting. Possessing me with his kiss. He shifted his weight over me. My body awakened to the bliss of having him so close again.
His mouth opened mine wider. He wanted more. So did I. In my right mind by daylight, when I wasn’t drowsy from sleep, needy from a nightmare, warm beneath his comforting weight, and delirious with the sensation of his mouth marking me anew, I might have been able to push away. Might. But in such a state, I was helpless against his desire, against my own. All I could think was?—
“Yes.”
His lips trailed to my neck, nipping and licking a hot line down the tender column of my throat. My fear faded. An aching need coiled tight with every brush of his mouth on my skin. Although I couldn’t see him in the dark, I could certainly feel him. My hands molded over the wide expanse of his chest, down the ridges of his abdomen. He found my mouth again, groaning as my hands wandered a soft path up and down. Lower to the thin trail of hair disappearing into his pants.
“Moira.” A warning.
He gripped my wrists and pinned them above my head in a firm, yet gentle grip, speaking against my lips. “Stop that.”
I bit his lower lip, swollen from hard kisses. “Why?”
“Because you’re injured. And I’m trying to be a gentleman.”
I let out a breathy laugh. “A gentleman? A devil, maybe.”
